Assassin legends and terminology
Assassin is a name that was applied originally by the Crusader circles in the Near East and other medieval Europeans to theNizari.
The term assassin, which appeared in European languages in a variety of forms (e.g., assassini, assissini, and heyssisini), was evidently based on variants of the Arabic word hashishi (.ⲹ,). The latter was applied by other Muslims toNizarisin the pejorative sense of “low-class rabble” or “people of lax morality,” without any derivative explanation reflecting any special connection between theNizarisand hashish, a product of hemp. This term of abuse was picked up locally in Syria by theCrusadersand European travellers and adopted as the designation of the Nizari Ismailis. Subsequently, after the etymology of the term had been forgotten, it came to be used in Europe as a noun meaning “murderer.” Thus, a misnomer rooted in abuse eventually resulted in a new word, assassin, in European languages.
Medieval Europeans—and especially the Crusaders—who remained ignorant of Islam as a religion and of its internal divisions were also responsible for fabricating and disseminating (in the Latin Orient as well as in Europe) a number of interconnected legends about the secret practices of theNizaris, the so-called “assassin legends.” In particular, the legends sought to provide a rational explanation for the seemingly irrational self-sacrificing behaviour of the Nizariھ岹’is; as such, they revolved around the recruitment and training of the youthful devotees. The legends developed in stages from the time of Sinan and throughout the thirteenth century. Soon, the seemingly blind obedience of theھ岹’is to their leader was attributed, by their occidental observers, to the influence of an intoxicating drug like hashish. There is no evidence that suggests that hashish or any other drug was used in any systematic fashion to motivate theھ岹’is; contemporary non-Ismaili Muslim sources that are generally hostile toward the Ismailis remain silent on this subject. In all probability, it was the abusive namehashishi that gave rise to the imaginative tales disseminated by theCrusaders.
Culmination of the assassin legends
The assassin legends culminated in a synthesized version that was popularised by Marco Polo, who combined the hashish legend with a number of other legends and also added his own contribution in the form of a secret “garden of paradise,” where theھ岹’is supposedly received part of their training. By the fourteenth century, the assassin legends had acquired wide currency in Europe and the Latin Orient, and they were accepted as reliable descriptions of the secret practices of the Nizari Ismailis, who were generally portrayed in European sources as a sinister order of drugged assassins. Subsequently, Westerners retained the nameassassinsas a general reference to the Nizari Ismailis, although the term had now become a new common noun in European languages meaning “murderer.” It was AL Silvestre de Sacy (1758—1838) who succeeded in solving the mystery of the name and its etymology, although he and the other orientalists continued to endorse various aspects of the assassin legends. Modern scholarship in Ismaili studies, which is based on authentic Ismaili sources, has now begun to deconstruct the Assassin legends that surround the Nizari Ismailis and theirھ岹’is— legends rooted in hostility and imaginative ignorance.
Further reading
- Daftary, F.The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismailis, 88—127. London: I.B. Tauris, 1994.
- Hodgson, Marshall GSThe Order of Assassins, 82—84, 110—115, 133—137. The Hague: Mouton, 1955.
- Lewis, B.The Assassins, 1-12, 124-40. London; Weidenfeld and Nicolsön, 1967.
- Polo, Marco.The Book of Ser Marco Polo, 3rd revised ed. by H. Cordier, ed. and transl. H Yule, vol. 1, 139-146. London: J. Murray, 1929.
- Silvestre de Sacy, AL. “Memoir sur La Dyanastie des Assassins, et sur L’Etymologie de leur Nom.”Memoires de sins, et sur l’Institut Royal de France4(1818): 1-84. (English translation in F Daftary,The Assassin Legends, 136-188.)
